How Taxi Companies Can Stay Competitive

The basic idea behind taxicabs hasn’t changed much over the years. The cab stops, you get in and ride to your destination. You pay the driver and get out. It’s a simple transaction that occurs millions of times every day, all around the world.

What is changing is the way that customers hail the cab. The days of standing on the curb, waving madly and whistling to get the driver’s attention are long gone. Now you just whip out your phone, make a couple of clicks and your cab arrives at the curb, right when you need it. It’s quick, efficient and it really works.

Hailo is one of the pioneers in this new field. The direct connection of customer to driver has given birth to new way of doing things for the taxi industry. The only potential downfall to the Hailo system is the exclusion of the taxi company as part of the operation.

By connecting drivers to each other, and passengers to that pool of drivers, Hailo has essentially eliminated the need for a higher form of organizational authority, like a central dispatch system. The app basically removes the need for the taxi company itself.

It’s not that the system is flawed, quite the opposite, in fact. Utilizing the power of mobile apps to dispatch cabs to waiting customers is an undeniable advantage. But eliminating the need for a company to oversee the operations will present some problems.

Drivers who operate outside the umbrella of a company will face added challenges that would compromise their ability to do their jobs. Without a company to handle administrative matters, drivers would need to allocate time to paperwork, licensing and other matters that would take away from their earning time. Likewise, maintenance on the car would become the sole responsibility of the driver, further increasing the amount of non-paying downtime they experience. Customer service will also be impacted, as passengers will have no higher authority to turn to incase of an incident that’s beyond the driver’s ability to rectify.

There is a viable solution to this problem. Taxi companies could choose to deploy their own mobile app. It would give their drivers the same advantages as a product like Hailo, as well as giving the company a simper dispatch system. The advantage to the company is they can benefit from the new trends in the taxicab industry. They can give their drivers a modern tool to boost revenue and therefore boost driver earnings. The company can do all of this without the fear of being eliminated from the operation.

Utilizing the power of mobile technology to control cab operations is a process that every taxi operator will need to undergo if they want to remain competitive. Those companies that deploy their own app, such as a customizable white-label solution, will find they have an advantage over those cab operators who choose to use a product like Hailo.